Drawing
Ink is drawn above the notes on a page. Choose a tool on the Draw tab and drag on the page.
Tools
| Tool | Effect |
|---|---|
| Select | Selects, moves and resizes note containers (the default) |
| Type | A click on a text container edits it; a click on empty paper adds one |
| Pen | Freehand lines |
| Highlighter | Wide, translucent freehand lines. It switches the color to yellow the first time. |
| Eraser | Removes every stroke or shape you drag across |
| Rectangle, Ellipse, Line | Shapes from where you press to where you release. Hold Shift for a square, a circle or a 45° line. |
The status bar shows the active tool. Leaving the Draw tab returns to Select.
Connecting notes
The Connect tool (in Shapes) draws a connector between two notes: drag from one note to another and let go over it. The line runs from the edge of one note to the edge of the other, with an arrowhead at the end, in the pen's color and thickness. Move or resize either note and the connector follows, also while you drag; notes too close for the gap are joined edge to edge, and overlapping ones centre to centre. Letting go anywhere but on another note draws nothing.
The eraser removes a connector like any other stroke, and deleting a note removes the
connectors to it. Duplicating a page duplicates its connectors between the copied
notes. In a .notespace backup a connector is a line with extra fields, so NoteSpace
shows it as a plain line where it was last drawn.
Straightening a shape
Draw a line, a rectangle or an ellipse freehand with the Pen, and hold the pointer still for a moment before you let go: the stroke becomes the shape, the same as one drawn with the shape tools, in the pen's color and thickness. A rectangle or an ellipse has to end about where it began. A stroke that isn't close to one of the three, or could be either a rectangle or an ellipse, stays as you drew it, and so does anything smaller than about 16 points. Once a stroke has become a shape, moving further doesn't change it. To keep a stroke exactly as drawn, let go without pausing; ⌘Z removes a straightened shape like any other stroke.
Color and thickness
Color picks the ink color from the swatches or as a hex value. Thickness sets the pen width, from 0.5 to 30 points (3 to start with). The highlighter is four times as wide as the pen, and at least 12 points.
How strokes are kept
A stroke is committed when you release the pointer, as one step to undo. Freehand strokes are simplified slightly when they're committed, keeping their shape while dropping redundant points. Erasing removes whole strokes.
Clear Ink removes every stroke and shape on the page after asking; it can be undone.
Ink shows in PNG exports. Markdown and HTML exports mention the number of strokes instead.